


Vital Signs

by Mangokiwitropicalswirl



Series: Season  6 / Season 7 arc [2]
Category: The X-Files
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-25
Updated: 2016-10-25
Packaged: 2018-08-27 00:29:08
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,227
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8380375
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mangokiwitropicalswirl/pseuds/Mangokiwitropicalswirl
Summary: Sequel to "Stealing First"





	

She wakes up in the hospital. Again. 

 

Even as her eyelids flutter open, Scully ticks off the familiar litany of her own vital signs. Pulse, slow but strong and steady. Respiration, normal. Blood Pressure, seems okay. Temperature, a little feverish. She traces sensations out to her extremities, slowly wiggling fingers and toes, making sure what she knows of her body remains intact. 

She has lost count of the number of times she has been here, waking to the rhythmic beeps of the monitors. It's been so many times, she has a routine now. She turns her attention to the feverish feeling, trying to remember what has landed her here this time. Her skin feels raw and stripped, like a bad sunburn before it peels. She tries to smooth her tongue out over her lips, but she is parched and her lips feel swollen and cracked. If she had to make a preliminary diagnosis, she'd guess exposure or chemical burns.

This is what she does -- sift the evidence, formulate, postulate. Even when it's her own life in the ledger, this is her default setting. It's a comfort to be able to measure the data and draw conclusions when so much else is a blur. Her memory wakes more slowly, but she begins to piece things together.

The Schiffs. Brown Mountain. Her body being pulled from the earth, covered in dirt and bog sludge. A bumpy ride down the hill in a boxy forest service truck. Mulder's hand stretched across the chasm between them clutching hers. Mulder.

She jolts, but can't quite sit up for all the wires and tubes. Is he alive? Is he here? Is he conscious?

This is the second set of questions she usually runs through, so routinely she thinks maybe she should add "Mulder: Status" to her personal list of vitals.

Images flicker. Finding Mulder's skeletal remains on the slopes of Brown Mountain. The numb shock of trying to identify him by dental records. The coroner's words, "It looks like a ritualistic killing," slapping her in the face -- exactly what she'd said to Mulder the morning he brought her the case. Her incredulous response, "You're satisfied with my conclusions?" Writing a report through blinding tears. Opening the door to his wake, absorbing the pitying stares reserved for widows.

Her heart rate quickens. Did that happen? She can't remember what was real, what is real. She struggles, fumbling around for the call button, her movements frantic but uncomfortably restrained by tubes and wires. "Nurse," she calls out, "Nurse!"

Hearing her cry out, A.D. Skinner strides through the door. "Sir, Agent Mulder?" she whispers hoarsely, "Is he..."

"He's alright. He's next door," Skinner interjects before she can become any more agitated. "He's sleeping."

Scully lets out a long breath. "Sir, what happened?"

"I'm hoping you two will be able to tell me," replies Skinner. "All I can tell you for sure is that the doctors said we found you both just in time."

Scully nods. Her recollection's jumbled. She has other memories too, after the wake, of she and Mulder talking things through at his apartment, deducing that they must be hallucinating, either one or both of them together. Then Mulder putting a bullet through Skinner’s chest at their debrief -- that obviously didn't happen. But what did? She wrinkles her forehead in confusion, trying to puzzle it out.

"Get some rest. " Skinner purses his lips and steps back into the hall. "We'll sort this out later."

It's disorienting to wake up with too many memories when after her abduction, she'd woken up with none. She begins thinking backward methodically to the days before the Brown Mountain case. Catching a glimpse of the date on the intake board, Scully counts only 10 days since the night at the ballpark, when they almost crossed their uncrossable line and nearly slid into home under the trees.

She flushes remembering. Whatever sense of Mulder as a measurable vital sign existed prior to that night, he now feels even more like an extension of her own body.

 

True to form, they haven't talked about it, not even jokingly. Scully had half-expected him to show up at her apartment the next day, ready to dive in where they had left off. She had more-than-half wanted him to. But he shared her desire to do things the right way, that after all this time, they owed it to themselves to do better than just find the nearest coat closet and fuck each other's brains out.

So the morning of the Brown Mountain case two days ago was the first time they'd seen each other -- thanks to the Three Stooges and the technological high jinks that had lured her out to Vegas. Although Byers, Langley and Frohike couldn't have known what had gone on between them, they still knew how easily Scully has always been swayed by him. When Mulder's voice pleaded "please get here. It's an emergency," what could she do but follow? Her, "Okay, okay... okay" was gentler, more accommodating, and her rush to hop on a plane at 3 a.m. more than a little anticipatory. Thinking back, Scully is embarrassed to admit there was part of her that thrilled at the idea of a trip to Vegas with him. As if maybe the emergency wasn't their usual kind.

It wasn't surprising to find Mulder in a subtly flirtatious mood as he unspooled the details of the Brown Mountain lights and the Schiffs. He showed her the image of their skeletons, intertwined in death like some modern-day Arthur and Guinevere. With his characteristic innuendo and raised eyebrow, he’d noted, "Not to mention that these skeletons aren't wearing any clothes."

Scully remembers laying the teasing skepticism on thick in response, unable to resist poking fun at his idea that aliens must have "nothing better to do than buzz the same mountain over and over again for 700 years."

"It sounds like crap when you say it," he'd sighed, biting his lip so adorably she had just about hurdled the desk and shoved her tongue down his throat. But Scully knew the events of the ballfield had thrown them both a little off kilter, and they needed the ritual of this “perfunctory dance, as Mulder called it, to steady them. So off they went to a podunk town and a gory autopsy. She remembers how eager he was to get out to the field site as she scooped bog sludge off rib bones and mused over toxicological explanations. "You coming?" he'd called out on his way out the door, but she had waved him on ahead.

In the swirls of memory that linger, she remembers that she had grieved those as his last words to her after finding his remains. Even though Skinner has just assured her he's next door, she breaks a cold sweat and her heart pounds through her chest. The sense of losing him returns and hollows her out.

It had seemed unbearably cruel. To have tasted him for the first time, to have pulled his body as close as she had longed to, to have kissed him so hard and so long she thought she could have come just from sound of his hitching breaths in her ear -- and then almost immediately to lose him. Even if she could have lived without him before, she knows now she most definitely cannot. 

She needs to see him. She fumbles for the call button again. "Please," she begins when the attending nurse finally arrives," please, could I see the patient next door? Agent Mulder? Just for a moment. I can't get myself up with all these monitors."

"Ms. Scully," the nurse apologizes, "I'm sorry but the doctors have you on some strict orders. They want another round of anti-psychotics through you in the next hour. I'm afraid you'll have to stay put and hooked up to the drip."

"Anti-psychotics?" Scully sighs. She contemplates playing the doctor card and demanding to see her chart, anything that might get her up out of this stupid bed.

"Scully!" She hears him.

"Nurse." She calls her back in. "Please, he's asking for me. Just let me tell him I'm okay. He's not gonna shut up until he sees I'm alright."

"Miss Scully," the nurse shakes her head, "Mr. Mulder hasn't woken up since you both got here. I'm sorry dear, I'm sure you're just reacting to the meds. Get some rest now."

Scully settles back in the bed with an exasperated sigh. She's too on edge to sleep, but she closes her eyes. It's impossible to get comfortable, and the whir of the auto-drip clicks on noisily.

"Scully, are you okay?" She hears him again. It's a hallucination, she tells herself.

"It's not," he replies.

"What? Yes it is," she startles, answering him out loud, even though she can clearly hear his voice in her head, but she knows he's in the next room sleeping. "This is just the residual effects of whatever we were exposed to. Or maybe the anti-psych drugs." 

Great, now I'm arguing with myself, she thinks. I don't even need Mulder around to spar with him.

"Oh, but think how much you would miss me," he teases.

"Well, that's true," she smiles. This is an odd sensation, holding both sides of a conversation. She realizes she knows him well enough she could probably play his part in a Broadway production of "Mulder: the Musical."

"You're probably right, Scully, but I've always imagined I'd be played by Richard Gere."

"Richard Gere?" she smirks. "Somebody sure thinks highly of himself."

"I wasn't hearing any complaints the other night."

At that moment she feels him, physically, his warm breath at her ear, the sensation of his long body drawing up alongside her in the hospital bed. Her eyes jolt open. Nothing. Just the bland fluorescent light of a white-walled room, the mess of wires and screens, a closed door.

"Mulder, what’s going on?" She feels his arm come over her waist as he bends his knees up to spoon tightly behind her in the cramped bed. 

"Just making myself comfortable."

"You certainly are." She can feel the scruff of a two-day beard tickle the groove behind her ear. As long as her eyes are closed, it's as if he's right there. Scully softens and leans her head back a little to nuzzle her cheek along his. He must be able to hear my thoughts.

"I can." He answers. "Can you hear mine?"

Scully pauses and concentrates, eyes still clenched. "No, I don't think so. But I feel you, it's like you're right here."

"I am right here," he responds, tightening his arm around her waist and threading the fingers of his other hand through loose tendrils of her hair. The soft kiss he places on the side of her neck sends a shiver down her spine.

"No, you're not," she argues, "Skinner was just here. He said you're asleep next door. Seriously, Mulder, what is going on? Is this my hallucination? Your hallucination?”

 

“Scully,” Mulder scolds. “It is what it is. Maybe it’s astral projection, or shared psychosis. Do you really want to get into this now?” His hands are busy gently stroking along her waist and torso, his nose nestling deeper into her hair. “I can't explain it, Scully, but is it so strange? We've shared hallucinations before. There must be enough of the psychotropic substance in our systems that at least some part of our connection remains." 

 

“Mulder, even if I were inclined to buy into the idea of shared hallucination -- which has never been substantiated, by the way --”

 

He cuts her off.“If I'm asleep next door, could I do this?" He delicately traces the seashell curve of her ear with the tip of his tongue.

At the feel of his tongue on her delicate skin, her stomach flips over and tightens. "But this makes no sense," she sighs even as her whole body begins to thrum in response to the way he is marking her with his hands and his tongue. "We're no longer underground, they've got us medicated. You'd think the effects would have worn off by now."

 

“Well,” he begins, his hand drawing meandering circles on her abdomen, “I was down there longer than you were. Maybe that’s why I can still hear you, but you can’t hear me.”

 

“True, I had less exposure to the fungus,” she murmurs, “that makes sense...”. Her thoughts trail off as Mulder’s hand moves up her torso to her ribcage, just under her breasts. She feels him snuggle closer behind her, the evidence of him hardening at her lower back.

 

“Mulder,” she protests, “we shouldn’t do this here. Skinner’s right outside.”

 

“I’m not here, remember? I’m asleep next door,” Mulder argues innocently, his thumb ever-so-slightly flicking over one nipple. “And what exactly are we doing?” 

 

She sucks in a breath and swallows a groan. God, that’s good. “Are you telling me I need to remind you?” she teases. “Was the other night at the ballfield that forgettable?”

 

“Scully,” his voice lowers, his breath tickling her neck, “that night was a lot of things, but forgettable is not one of them.”

 

She turns her head and captures his mouth in a soft kiss, smiling. “Good,” she says solidly. “After all, it's my turn to teach you something.”

 

“And what would that be, Dr. Scully?”

 

“Well,” she pauses. “Given how often we seem to find ourselves in the hospital, I think it would be good for you to know how to assess a patient.”

 

“Scully,” he replies disappointedly, pulling back, “I have to admit I had something a little more athletic in mind for our next lesson.”

 

Smiling, Scully turns slowly, bringing her knees up closer to fit in the narrow bed. With her forehead pressed to his, she smoothes her palms over his warm chest. “Mulder, as fun as it was pretending to let you teach me how to hit, I thought you should learn something a little more, you know, practical for our everyday lives.”

 

“You forget,” he retorts playfully, “I once resuscitated you on the cold floor of a spacecraft while alien pod creatures were coming to life all around us. I think I’m pretty solid on life saving skills.”

 

“Well, even if that’s true,” and that’s never been proven, she thinks, “You could probably use a refresher. I know how you like to skip mandated FBI training seminars.”

 

“Scully, please don’t tell me after all this time, you still don’t believe me about what happened in Antarctica?”

 

“Does that fall into the, like, 98.9% of the time that you’re right?” She grins, tossing his words back at him. Before he can reply, she kisses him deeply and pulls him against her, slipping one leg in between his as she brings her hands up around his neck.

 

Mulder sighs against her and responds by sliding a hand down to cup her ass, pulling her closer. “Is this how you assess all your patients, Dr. Scully?” 

 

“Just, you know, checking vitals.” She smiles again before snaking a hand under the collar of Mulder’s hospital gown and nudging it down his shoulders. “First, we need a good read of your pulse rate.” She slides the gown all the way down to his waist and off his elbows. Placing a few slow kisses on his bare chest, she strokes a couple fingers along his neck, pressing against the artery for a moment. “Hmm,” Scully pauses teasingly, “seems a bit fast. Maybe you need to rest for a bit.”

 

“Not a chance,” Mulder huffs, sliding his own hands along her thighs up under her gown, gripping her waist gently with his thumbs under the elastic of her panties.

 

“And we should probably check respiration,” she continues. “You’re sounding a little breathless.” 

 

Mulder counters by opening her mouth with a kiss, his tongue probing for hers for what feels like long minutes. The heat between her legs builds as Mulder works his hands beneath her panties, kneading her ass as he kisses her. Scully uses her knee to widen the space between Mulder’s legs and moves a hand down to cup him softly.

 

“Definitely breathless,” he croaks as she smoothes her hand up and down along his shaft on top of his boxer-briefs.

 

“Me too,” Scully whispers, panting as they break the kiss. She takes a couple long breaths and stills the movement of her hand along his erection. “I’ll need to check your temperature next,” she explains with a tilt of her head, continuing the lesson, “and there’re a couple ways to do that.”

 

“And what are those, Doctor?” Mulder’s hands have almost worked her panties down past her hips.

 

“Well,” she explains, “I can take a temporal reading.” She presses her lips to his forehead, first against one temple and then the other, her tongue leaving little imprints on his heated skin. “But,” she goes on, “temporal readings can be notoriously inaccurate compared to some better basal indicators.”

 

“I love it when you talk dirty, Scully.”

 

Wordlessly, she slides her hand beneath his boxers to grip him and slowly begins to stroke his shaft, up and down, teasing him with ever increasing pressure and speed before slowing again.

 

Mulder’s breath catches and he lets out a small groan, tipping his head back with a gasp. “What’s the verdict, doc?”

 

“Definitely overheated,” she breathes into his ear. “In fact, I’d say you’re hot. Very hot.”

 

“Seems I’m not the only one,” Mulder growls. Scully suppresses a little yelp as her body jerks in response to Mulder’s two long fingers finding her clit. Then he curves them up inside her, spreading moisture out over her folds. “Yup,” he chuckles, “also hot. What are we going to do about this?”

 

“I know what I’d normally do,” Scully whispers, “but we are in a hospital after all.”

 

“I can be quiet if you can,” Mulder implores. “I’ve gotten good at it after all these years on the other side of thin motel rooms walls from you.”

 

“Me too,” Scully confesses shyly. 

 

They’re both still for a moment, weighing the meaning of what they’ve revealed. Almost hesitant to proceed, Mulder teases one finger delicately inside her as he asks, “How are your vitals?”

 

“There’s one more we haven’t covered,” Scully smirks as she makes room for both her hands to reach between his legs.

 

“What’s that?” Mulder asks as he shifts to give her better access.

 

“Blood pressure.” Using both hands beneath his shorts, she cups his balls and gives a slight squeeze to his erection. “Which, from what I can tell, doesn't seem to be a problem.” 

 

Mulder groans and responds by slicking more wetness through her folds and reaching his fingers up in to press against the front wall of her vagina. Scully’s breath hitches and she tries to muffle a squeak of pleasure as he begins stroking her there while simultaneously pressing her clit with the heel of his hand. Oh my god, she thinks as her eyes roll back and she begins to lose herself in the sensation of his caresses.

 

“There you go again,” Mulder teases as he works his other arm up under her gown to cup her breast. Scully can’t quite hold back a few encouraging hums as he works to find her favorite rhythm. “Shh, Scully,” Mulder reminds her before covering her mouth with a kiss, stifling his own groans as she intensifies her strokes along his shaft. 

 

It’s an awkward tangle of intertwined arms as they face each other, each struggling to stay quiet as the pressure between them escalates. A couple of times Scully is tempted to laugh at the old adolescent feeling of giving a handjob in cramped quarters. But then she’s jolted back to the moment by Mulder’s mouth moving down to suckle one breast overtop of her gown, his other hand underneath pinching her nipple. It sends a ripple of desire straight to her clit where he’s pressing his hand in tighter and tighter circles. She pumps Mulder’s penis faster and throws her head back with her eyes still clenched shut.

 

“Unnh,” she whimpers, trying to stay quiet. “Baby, I’m gonna…”

 

“Yeah,” he breathes heavily, “oh yeah. Almost…”

 

There’s a flushed coiling in her abdomen as her whole world boils down to the circling motion Mulder is making with his hand and the pumping rhythm she is sloppily trying to maintain on his ever-tightening erection. 

 

“Mul--,” she begins to cry out as he moves quickly to cover her mouth with his again as he presses his two fingers swiftly into the soft flesh inside her. She pumps him faster still and circles her thumb over the head of his penis as she gives his balls a soft squeeze. She feels him choke on a breath and his hips jerk at the same time the building fire in her own center arcs and spreads in a shatter of stars. She arches toward him as he comes in a hot rush of liquid between them, both of them shuddering and panting with release.

 

Mulder keeps his hand pressed into her, letting the rippling pulses of her orgasm sputter around his fingers. Scully gently strokes his diminishing erection, bringing her other hand up around his back to tighten their embrace. For a few minutes there’s no sound but their breathing, which slowly resolves into unison.

 

“Baby?” Mulder questions, incredulous. “Really?”

 

“Sorry,” Scully mumbles sheepishly. “I think we got a little carried away there.”

 

“Yeah,” Mulder grins. “There’s playing doctor, and then there’s playing doctor.”

 

“And I know I said I wanted to do things the right way,” she continues, “I don’t think jerking each other off in a hospital bed is quite what I had in mind.”

 

“Scully,” he says, ducking his head to look into her eyes, “don’t overthink this. There’s still quite a lot left to look forward to.”

 

“Oh?” She smiles, raising an eyebrow as she feels a slight twitch of his penis under her hand.

 

Mulder repositions them in the bed, her back flat against the elevated cot with him stretched out beside her, carefully avoiding the now-cooling wet spot. He brushes a hair back behind her ear, his eyes searching hers. Scully smiles again, but he sees her holding something back and wrinkles his forehead. She reaches a hand out and curves it around his jaw.

 

“I’m sorry,” she sighs, “I’m just can’t make sense of what’s really happening here. Everything with the Schiffs felt so real, and then your discovery, and now, you’re here but you’re not here. I just…”.

 

"What's the last thing you remember?" Mulder smoothes his hand over her hair again.

"Reaching for your hand in the back of the truck." Scully thinks back to that groggy moment. "Though now that I think about it, that was strange too. It was like I felt you tell me to put my hand out, like we were linked. I knew, subconsciously."

"Same." Mulder answers. "Scully, what else do you remember?"

She takes in a breath with a quick gulp, avoiding his gaze, her eyes fixed on his sternum. "You died. I went to your wake."

She strokes a hand back and forth in the soft hairs of his arm. A panicky feeling rises in her chest again as she remembers the way she had seemed to float, disconnected from everything and everyone, through his solemn apartment. She chokes on the words, "And I couldn't explain how! No one would believe me!"

"It’s okay," Mulder whispers. "I'm here now."

Scully sniffles. "I couldn't save you, Mulder. It all felt so worthless. That you would die like that, in some ordinary way. And I couldn't explain it. All I could do was a stupid autopsy." She gulps back the lump in her throat. "I refused to believe you were gone."

Mulder pulls her tightly against him and lets her tears flow silently between them for a few moments.

 

I cannot lose you, she thinks, knowing he hears her, but unable to say it. I can’t.

 

I know. She realizes that deep down, beneath layers of blood and bone, in her gut, her core, she does hear him, faintly but clearly. I know.  
_________

 

Scully wakes awhile later, still surrounded by the sensation of Mulder’s body enveloping hers in the narrow bed. His hands in her hair. The rise and fall of his breath pushing against her rib cage. The warmth of his lips at her ear. The rhythm of their frantic stroking and release.

 

But as her eyes slide open, he’s gone and any remaining traces of him dissolve off her skin like water. It’s jarring, moving between the world behind her eyelids and the sterile white hospital walls. Slowly, any sense of his presence inside her consciousness flickers out and she’s left with a jumble of conflicting memories.

 

It’s only later when they’re released from the hospital and she catches his eye on the car ride home she begins to wonder. He looks at her quizzically as her forehead wrinkles, puzzled. She opens her mouth, intending to ask him what he remembers from their time in the hospital. “Mulder,” she begins.

 

He cuts in, seeming not to have heard her, “What a mindfuck, huh Scully?”

 

She closes her mouth and takes a slow breath. “Yes,” she replies steadily. “A major mindfuck.”


End file.
